MOM STOP: Thanksgiving crafts capture a special creativity

Sunday

Nov 24, 2013 at 5:00 PMNov 24, 2013 at 5:55 PM

I'm all about turning the holiday into an opportunity for my children to create. Thanksgiving is an easy holiday to create crafts with your kids and use the craft as a way to open dialogue about what the holiday is about. Here are some Thanksgiving craft ideas.

By Lydia Seabol Avant

I'm a sucker when it comes to crafts that my kids have made. Even a simple crayon drawing or a popsicle-stick creation, I have a hard time throwing away. In our hallway, we have an area where we pin our preschooler's artwork with clothespins, proudly displaying for all to see. To me, a child's artwork is like a glimpse of who they are at that point in time, an outlet of creativity that you might not otherwise see. It's something I cherish, especially with my kids.Perhaps I inherited it from my dad, who relished in doing craft projects on the weekends with his daughters. It's because of him that I learned to love painting, building and working with my hands. I'm all about turning the holiday into an opportunity for my children to create. Thanksgiving is an easy holiday to create crafts with your kids and use the craft as a way to open dialogue about what the holiday is about. Thanksgiving craft ideas:-- Turkey table runner: Take a solid color table runner. Paint your child's thumb and palm brown, and then the fingers each a different color. Press the child's handprint onto the table runner. Once dry, with a permanent marker draw a turkey's beak and eyes on the thumbprint and legs just below the palm. The colored fingers become the turkey's “feathers.” Be sure to write the child's name and the year. Get all children in the family to participate. Each year, do another handprint and over the years the table runner will become filled with growing “turkeys.” -- Place cards: Write a name for each family member on plain place cards. Ask the children to interview family members about what they are thankful for. Write down what each person says under their name on the place card. The children can decorate the place cards with crayons or stickers. Guests can read aloud what they are thankful for at the holiday meal. -- Place mats: Using a sheet of construction paper, pictures and old magazines, have your kids cut and paste pictures of things they are thankful for to make a collage. Laminate the collage and use them as Thanksgiving meal place mats. Have your children explain the collage during the holiday meal. -- Pine cone turkey: Take a large pinecone from the yard and ask the kids to collect fall leaves. Using a hot glue gun, glue the fall leaves on the bottom side of the pine cone, splayed out to form the “fan” of the turkey's tail. Cut out a brown piece of construction paper to be the shape of a turkey's head and neck, and glue to the top side of the pine cone. (The pine cone will rest on its side, looking like a turkey with a leafy tail.) Glue craft eyes to the brown construction paper to finish off the turkey. -- Turkey prints: Trace your child's footprint on a piece of brown construction paper and cut out. Then, trace your child's handprint multiple times on pieces of red, yellow and orange construction paper, and also cut out. Turn the footprint with the toes facing downward. Have your child glue the handprints splayed out on the back of the “heel” part of the foot. The hands will become the turkey's feathers. Then paste a triangle-shape piece of orange construction paper to the front of brown footprint for a beak, and use a marker to draw the eyes.

Reach Lydia Seabol Avant at 205-722-0222 or email her at lydia.seabolavant@tuscaloosanews.com.Visit www.tuscmoms.com to read her blog, meet other moms in West Alabama and to share photos, videos and more.

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